Q. What does pure mind mean?

A. Many people interpret ‘pure mind’ as keeping pure or beautiful thoughts such as love, compassion, the Buddha or God. In Zen, pure mind means a mind without illusions. An illusion is an imaginary line or a label produced by us. Then ‘beautiful’, ‘love’, ‘compassion’. ‘Buddha’ and ‘God’ are all illusions. There can’t be such relative ideas as pure and dirty in the mind without illusions. So ancient masters used to say that a good thought, however good and great, is not as good as no thought. The mind without any illusion is the very pure mind that we are pursuing, which is referred to as Buddha, God or true Self.